Air Force Academy soccer team seniors face delayed graduation over hazing in which they had no part

Air Force Academy seniors on the soccer team may have their graduation delayed until the fall over a hazing incident that they weren’t involved in, harming their military careers. All nine seniors on the Air Force Academy soccer team are facing possible delayed graduation over the hazing of a freshman, despite them not being present for the hazing and previously warning the team to not participate in any hazing.

Retired Air Force Colonel Mark Stoup’s son, Kobey, who is a senior and was a captain on the soccer team, was kicked off the team in October, after the hazing incident occurred during a team trip in September, his father told Just the News on Tuesday.

The Stoup family says they adopted Kobey from Ethiopia when he was five years old, and he has enjoyed playing soccer since he was at the Ethiopian orphanage. Since Kobey’s adoption, he has played in the Olympic Development Program and was on the Atlanta United team, representing the U.S. Under-16 Boys' National Team in a tournament in Italy in 2018.

While Kobey Stoup was playing soccer for the Air Force Academy at the beginning of his college career, the team was “the best team in the nation,” but between head coaches leaving or being fired, the team “didn’t win a single game” last year, Stoup said.

The soccer team was “left with almost no leadership,” he added.

Coaching staff's alleged "tacit approval"

Stoup, the father of the cadet, said that “initiation traditions” and hazing have been ongoing at the Air Force Academy for “at least a decade or more.” Prior to this school year, the current seniors on the soccer team were “taught by upperclassmen, with tacit approval from the coaching staff,” that hazing is the “way we behave on the soccer team,” Stoup said. He added that these senior teammates “tried to end” the hazing “this year, but were unable to.”

Stoup said that during his son's soccer team trip in September, one of the teammates asked a senior about initiation – or hazing — traditions, and the senior told them, “no, it’s not appropriate, we’re not doing it,” but “the kids did it, anyway.”

A freshman on the soccer team was hazed during a September soccer team trip and the academy escalated the complaint to the Air Force Office of Special Trial Counsel for sexual assault. Stoup, a former Judge Advocate General who specialized in special crimes and victims' cases, said that while the hazing was inappropriate, it was “not assault.”

He explained that the “seniors were unaware of the hazing” of the freshman on the trip and were “not involved in it.” The Air Force Office of Special Trial Counsel declined to prosecute for sexual assault and sent it back to the academy, saying it was “not serious” and telling them to “deal with it,” Stoup said.

Reportedly, all the soccer team's seniors received Letters of Reprimand (LORs), which, according to Kobey Stoup’s lawyer, R. Davis Younts, could follow them for the rest of their military careers.

“There’s hope that the LOR for a cadet doesn’t necessarily end their career because they are still a cadet,” Younts told Just the News on Wednesday, but it “still exists in their record.” He said that Air Force instructions regarding LORs are “constantly changing,” and that “over the last several years, LORs went from something that would hurt a career and be around for two years, to now being in a file for 10 years.

“Whether or not these LORs are given to cadets, even if the guidance lets it stay” just at the cadet level, “regulations could change next year and result in this being a permanent record, which is a huge problem, and has been in the past for cadets I represented,” Younts continued.

Victim withdraws from matter

The cadets are being punished for an incident that the freshman who submitted the complaint about the hazing has since backed out of.

“The freshman who complained about the hazing” has “backed out of it, and is not wanting to cooperate with anything” because the investigation has gotten “out of control,” Stoup said. “He said he didn’t intend for this to happen” and “wants nothing to do with this.”

In his 30-year career as a JAG, Stoup said he’s “never seen anything quite like this before.”

With graduation just two weeks away, only some of the seniors on the soccer team have been informed that they will not be allowed to graduate until November or to expect a delayed graduation, according to Younts. Kobey Stoup has not yet been formally notified as to whether he will or won't be graduating this month or have to wait until the end of the fall semester, he added.

Kobey's father said that he had attempted to let academy leadership know that the seniors tried to shut down the hazing early on in the school year, but no one would talk to him over the phone to get more information. He explained that the seniors are not getting any information from the academy’s legal office, either, despite younger teammates already receiving their punishments.

The retired colonel also noted that there were nine Honor Guard cadets last year who “had a similar situation to the soccer team,” but they were all allowed “to graduate on time.”

The Air Force Academy “leadership failed to solve this problem for decades” regarding hazing, and “just punish the kids,” Stoup said, adding that they “simply cover themselves and punish down.”

“They’re punishing the kids, but not the leaders,” Stoup said.

An Academy spokesman told Just the News in a statement on Friday: "The U.S. Air Force Academy strives to protect the rights of all cadets, faculty, and staff. The Privacy Act prevents the release of disciplinary actions, graduation status, or other information regarding specific cadets."

A lot at stake for the cadets

“Just let the kids graduate and go to work,” Stoup argued, because “if they’re stuck for six months to a year” until they graduate, then they won’t have anything to do. “They’ve accomplished everything for graduation,” so instead of having “them sitting around, doing nothing,” let them be in the “Air Force, being productive,” he added.

“The other problem” with delaying commissioning is that cadets cannot “be a military officer until they graduate,” so their “commission is contingent on that,” Younts said.

“If they worked hard and got a pilot spot, they might have lost it because of a late graduation,” he continued. “Often, people with a late graduation lost that training slot they had,” and “even if they keep the same job, they could have a delay for six months to a year” in training, putting them “behind their peers.”

Younts said that some of the seniors have been told they will graduate late, but that the academy is “not giving timely updates at all to anyone,” asserting that leadership is also “ignoring potentially exculpatory evidence.”

“My concern with this whole process is this feels like an investigation that quickly got out of hand because, essentially rough-housing” turned into a sexual assault allegation, and while it “should’ve been addressed at a low level, it became essentially a criminal investigation,” Younts said. Not only has there been a “delay in processing time, but in a criminal investigation, they should be looking at everything,” such as who was aware of the hazing.

He added that while the academy is “treating this like a criminal investigation with the harsh treatment the cadets are getting, on the other hand, they’re not taking it seriously because they’re not accepting exculpatory information.”

“To graduate from the U.S. Air Force Academy, a cadet must demonstrate an aptitude for commissioned service and leadership, be satisfactory in conduct, and meet all military training, physical education, and academic requirements,” the academy's spokesman also said in the statement to Just the News. “Following an investigation into allegations of physical, unprofessional, and demeaning misconduct inflicted on other members of the Men’s Soccer Team, the Commandant of Cadets administered disciplinary actions. Further actions are still pending.”

“Any decisions about graduation and continued enrollment at the U.S. Air Force Academy will be made after the resolution of each specific case. The cadets have been afforded all due process considerations throughout, and have access to a defense counsel, as well as an opportunity to provide their perspective,” according to the statement.

“At this time, no coaches were implicated in any of the incidents," the Air Force Academy spokesperson added. "While previous coaches may not be directly culpable, they are responsible and accountable for the actions and culture of their teams.”